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Military Accessions in the National Interest – A Direct Path to Citizenship

The Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) program has been renewed through 2015. The program allows certain branches of the U.S. military to hire legal non-immigrants, such as international students and those granted deferred action, whose skills are deemed vital to the national interest. Vital skills include fluency in certain high-priority languages – from Albanian to Yoruba – or holding certain medical degrees such as dentists, surgeons, psychiatrists and other health professionals. An Army’s study of the first MAVNI class found that recruits were highly educated (a third had master’s degrees or higher) and highly motivated (their attrition was one-fourth that of other recruits). Click here to view the MAVNI pilot program fact sheet.